The Iraqi Parliament will try to appoint a new president this Saturday under the threat of boycott

In another episode of the difficult previous negotiations, several parties have protested the vote, which could not reach the necessary quorum

MADRID, March 26. (Royals Blue) –

The Iraqi Parliament is holding a session this Saturday in which it will decide on the new president of the country after a month and a half of tough political debate on the appointment to a position that is both ceremonial in practice and deeply symbolic given that the position is part of one of the three pillars on which the fragile political division between Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds is based.

It is precisely a Kurd who will have to hold the leadership of the State between the two candidates in contention: Reber Ahmed, of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (PDK) and the current president, Barham Salí, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who will try to revalidate their party’s dominance of a position whose candidates have held since 2005.

Ahmed was nominated for the post by the party after the Supreme Court on February 13 eliminated the candidacy of former Deputy Prime Minister Hoshiar Zebari, a decision that came just 24 hours before the vote in parliament was to take place. Several parliamentarians had indicated that Zebari, investigated in the past for alleged corruption, did not meet the requirements of “integrity and good reputation”.

The PDK is part of a tripartite alliance accompanied by the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance and, above all, the movement led by the Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr, winner of the legislative elections in October and current strong man of the country. Al Sadr has launched an order with these elections: the constitution of a triple alliance, a majority bloc that breaks with years of political tradition of consensus throughout the country.

Opposite him are the PUK and the so-called Coordination Framework, a group of pro-Iranian Shia parties — big losers in the October elections — that have opposed the tripartite alliance’s attempts to form a national majority government.

The result of the session is still up in the air. As the Kurdish agency Rudaw recalled, there are serious concerns about the possibility that Saturday’s session will not reach the legal quorum, since many parties and parliamentarians have announced that they will boycott the session and it will not be known until the last moment if the PUK will lend itself to the vote.

It must be remembered that the tripartite alliance has only 210 deputies, insufficient to achieve two thirds of its 329 members, which marks the legal quorum. If the president is finally elected this Saturday, only the appointment of a prime minister will remain pending, a position that will be represented by a Shiite. The Sunnis receive the Presidency of Parliament, which is currently held by Mohamed al Halbusi.

The parliamentarians, of an anticipated nature, were convened after the serious political crisis in which the country was plunged after the massive mobilizations registered in 2019, which forced the resignation of the Government and the approval of new electoral legislation.

The protests, which broke out in October 2019 and resulted in more than 550 deaths –according to the official balance provided in July 2020–, were a new example of the population’s disenchantment with the political class in the face of numerous cases of corruption. , the poor state of public services and the prevailing economic crisis in Iraq.